Carty, a right-hander, pitched a two-hitter with 10 strikeouts in Nazareth’s 3-0 victory before a crowd of 200 at Hackett Park in Easton. He threw 118 pitches, the majority of them fastballs while mixing in a change-up and a curveball for variety.

“Carty was the difference,” Easton manager Mickey Corpora said. “He’s a good pitcher. I thought he was effectively wild. We counted eight or nine of our batters that worked a three-ball count and some of them were 3-0 counts. He fought back from that. Our pitcher, Adam Martino, threw 78 pitches and was outstanding after the third inning.”

Easton has not won a NorCo Legion championship since 1968. Nazareth is going for its fourth league crown in the last five years, a feat they can accomplish later this evening at Nazareth Borough Park in the best-of-three series.

“My fastball was there,” said Carty, who lifted his record to 4-2 for Nazareth after going 4-3 for Becahi this past spring. “I wasn’t perfect, regardless of the zero runs I allowed. My teammates made the plays behind me and those three early runs we scored really helped.”

Carty also threw a complete game in a 3-1 win over Easton during the regular season. He struggled with his command early, throwing 27 pitches in the first inning and 22 in the second before settling down into a nice rhythm.

Only Ryan Amentler, who singled to center with one out in the second inning, and Nick Beinlich, who beat out an infield grounder to shortstop to lead off the third, reached Carty for hits in the game. But a double play erased Beinlich and Carty retired 15 of the last 16 batters he faced.

NorCo is using wooden bats for the first time since the late 1970s with players, who used aluminum bats during the spring high school season, wielding them only for the last month. Predictably, this has led to lower-scoring games, fewer home runs and a premium on small ball and fundamentals.

The latter two were on display Monday night. Neither team committed an error and each team executed a double play to get out of jams.

“I like it,” Nazareth manager Jason Brown said. “Yeah, I really like that we went to wooden bats. The game is better played, I think.”